Confusion as customers grapple with currency

Wednesday 2 January 2002 00:00 BST

OUR correspondents report on how the single currency was received in euroland, starting with Austria where the National Bank blundered as a branch in Graz handed out packs of euros containing 25 times what the customer had paid. At mid-day a red-faced manager announced they had lost 7,267 euros. By late afternoon that was reduced to 1,744 euros because honest customers had brought the money back.

There was another hiccup this afternoon when all the country's cash machines broke down. A central computer could not cope with the overhwelming number of transactions caused by the demand for euros. The fault was fixed after an hour.

Austrians have no emotional attachment to their currency and appear to have waved it goodbye without a tear.

In France people said farewell to the 700-year-old franc with little more than a Gallic shrug.

However there was trouble as bank staff stage a one-day strike over salaries and security. So it was as well the franc was alive and well as Parisians tried to use up their old money.

Queues built up in shops and cafès along the Champs Elysèes as customers hung over from New Year grappled with the franc to euro exchange rate.

One bakery near the Arc de Triomphe refused to accept euros until angry shoppers armed only with the new cash threatened to call the police. Newspaper vendor Jean-Yves Fays said: 'At one point things got so complicated that I had to give three people their money back and start all over again.'

Belgian Finance Minister Didier Reynders set the tone as he drew his first euros from a cash machine. 'As a beer-loving Belgian this is going to be spent on booze,' he announced and disappeared in the direction of a bar.

It was as easy as that for Belgians to bid adieu to the franc after 169 years. No one seemed to be missing it as cash machines paid out the new currency at the record rate of 600 withdrawals a minute. Brussels cab company Taxi Vert said: 'It all went like clockwork. None of our drivers had arguments. Everybody was good humoured.'

All along Northern Ireland's border with the Irish Republic - Britain's only land border with the new currency - traders found themselves dealing in three currencies: euros, sterling and the Irish punt. In supermarkets popular with shoppers from the south, checkouts have been installed to take Irish punts and give change in euros. Across the border the change worked smoothly and by today all punts will have been removed from cash dispensers. The Republic of Ireland has a shorter changeover period - six weeks - than most countries and is anxious to be the first to become 'eurofied'.

Seamus Murphy, who runs a restaurant, filling station and ice-cream parlour in Newry, Co Down, said: 'I asked Santa Claus for a pair of trousers with three legs. I'm going to need three pockets, one for each of the currencies.'

In Germany the transition was being tested today as people returned to work. Many shops have cancelled leave and many tills were manned by two people - one with a calculator. Sales of euro calculators have virtually sold out. Analysts say that if every sale takes 20 seconds longer Germany will lose 11% of its GDP in the first full day of the euro.

In Italy, where they never been particularly attached to their often ailing currency, a giant effigy of a 100 lira coin was burned in Bologna. Elsewhere restaurants were having special goodbye lira, hello euro, menus, with discounts for people who paid in euros. Even the Pope mentioned the euro in his New Year message. The country also recorded the first 'euro-rage', when police in Perugia had to separate a taxi driver and passenger arguing because the driver would not accept a lira cheque.

The Dutch contributed to what was described as a 'smooth transition' by taking advice to go easy on withdrawing euros from cash machines. In Amsterdam, most bars accepted guilders but many ran out of the new currency quickly because customers asked for change in euros. Later revellers who took taxis home were caught out because drivers had converted meters to euros.